The Great White Army Part 22

He laughed in reply, for my new appearance amused him.

"Upon my word, you would make an excellent Tartar, mon oncle," says he; and whether that were meant to be a compliment or a reproach upon my s.h.a.ggy appearance, I did not attempt to discover. The night had come down, and the moments were precious. It was no time for a trifler's argument, and I pushed on in silence.

The forest became more open as we proceeded, and I now perceived that the avenue must be a high road, so orderly were the groves of beeches which bordered it.

From time to time we heard the howling of wolves, and more than one watch-fire denoted the presence of the Russians. The prudence of the step we had taken in a.s.suming the garb of the Cossacks was now justified by the event. We came face to face with a dozen of these barbarians not a mile from the scene of the strife, and they pa.s.sed us without drawing rein, evidently being set upon a purpose of their own.

Leon was much amused by this, and swore that he would swim the Berezina in the same clothes.

"Cha.s.seurs are out of fas.h.i.+on," said he, "and hussars have become very cheap. I will go to the Tuileries as a Cossack, mon oncle, and Paris will applaud me."

I reminded him that Paris was yet a long way off, and that the dreaded river still lay between us and freedom. Like so many of my fellows who deluded themselves with that belief, I thought that we had but to cross the Berezina to leave our troubles behind us; nor could I foresee in any way what we must suffer before we reached the bridge at Kovno.

This, however, is to antic.i.p.ate. Behold us for the moment pressing on through the darkness of the forest, often losing the road because of the blackness of the night, and always alert in the presence of our enemies. That there were Cossacks all about us we knew full well, and when we emerged from the woods at last we perceived a whole regiment of them riding southward at a gallop.

This seemed to say that our own army lay in that direction. Undeterred by the presence of the Cossacks, we kept upon our course, and presently we heard the barking of watchdogs, and espied the lights of a village.

A little farther on yet, and the rising moon showed us familiar scenes.

There were dead and dying here, the bones of horses and the debris of an army that had pa.s.sed. I perceived immediately that we had regained the high road, and, pressing on to the village, we came up to a considerable post-house, whose cheerful lights shone out warmly upon the snow, while the windows revealed the uniforms of Frenchmen.

Now, this was a pleasant happening, and it is droll to recall what followed upon it. We had thought to grasp our comrades by the hand, and to change with them the news of yesterday and to-day; but hardly had we knocked at the door of the post-house when as great a panic overtook the men within as any I had witnessed since we quitted Moscow.

With a loud cry of "The Cossacks!" our fellow-countrymen bolted headlong by a door at the rear of the building, and when we entered there remained but two or three frightened figures huddled about the stove at the far end of the s.p.a.cious room.

"Name of a dog," says Leon, "I shall play at the Comedie Francaise yet."

And there he stood, shaking himself like a bear and laughing still at my appearance and his own.

This was all very well, but, fearing that the affair might have graver consequences, I went to the door and began to halloo after our comrades. It was all in vain; they were already at the far end of the village, and I doubt not that they thought it but a ruse to entrap them.

Meanwhile, the few Russians within the room had come up to Leon and were staring at him curiously. Very sternly he commanded them to return to their places, and, bolting the doors, he pointed to the table, upon which a great cauldron of soup was steaming.

"The spoils to the victors," says he; and, indeed, that was no time for ceremony. I was just about to tell him as much, when a voice from the far end of the apartment arrested our attention, and, turning about, we saw the very last person in all Russia we would have looked for that night.

"Mademoiselle Valerie, by all that is holy!" cries Leon; and in a twinkling he had caught her in his arms and was almost tearing the robe from her back.

"What the devil are you doing here, little witch?" he asked her.

She told him in a word.

"The Emperor is at Bobr. He is a little tired of me, mon ami, so you see I waited for you."

"The same Valerie, upon my soul. You have quarrelled with His Majesty!

There could be no better news. I salute you, fair Imperatrice, and, by St. Christopher, I will have supper with you."

She came up to me now, and greeted me very prettily. After all, it was not so wonderful that we had discovered her, for she had been riding a few hours ahead of us these many days, and this post-house was just such a place as her wit would choose for a bivouac. I told her as much, while chiding her faithlessness.

"Leon has ceased to eat since you went," said I; and G.o.d knows that that was somewhere near the truth.

Well, we all sat down, while she commanded the Russians to serve us.

The place was well enough after our night in the woods, and it did a man good to breathe its warm air and smell the savour of its primitive cooking. Not only had we the soup, but the fellow in charge produced a bottle of excellent Warsaw gin, and the first thing we did was to drain a gla.s.s to our reunion.

"We must not separate again until we cross the Pont de Jena," says Leon, catching mademoiselle's hand and looking deep into her eyes.

The words were cheering, and such as a good supper might prompt a man to speak. Alas! hardly were they uttered than we heard the blare of bugles, and, leaping to her feet, Valerie cried out that they were the Cossacks.

IV

Now here we were, hoist by our own petard. We had cast aside the heavy capes of the Russians as we entered the room, and thrown down their busbies, but, as upon a common impulse, we caught them up again when we heard the blare of the bugles, and, running to the window, peered out, to see the whole street full of hussars, and a couple of their officers beating upon the door of the post-house.

"It is the regiment that pa.s.sed us on the road," said I; "eight hundred men, at a hazard. What the devil now, my nephew? We are caught like rats in a trap!"

He looked very serious, to be sure, while mademoiselle had turned as white as a sheet. Presently it seemed to dawn upon her that we were wearing Russian uniforms, and at that she got an idea.

"Go there!" she cried, indicating the low seats by the stove. "I will deal with them. You must pretend to sleep. It is your only chance."

We obeyed her instantly. Leon upon the left hand of the stove, and myself upon the right, we smothered our heads in the capes and curled ourselves up as men heavy with fatigue. Hardly had we done this when Valerie opened the door and the Russians swarmed headlong into the room. So great was their need of food that some twenty of them were about the table in an instant, eating as ravening wolves, and far too busy in that employment to pay any attention to us.

Looking at them as I lay, I perceived that they were all officers of cavalry, and mostly men of some distinction; while it was also apparent that they contemplated no considerable halt in this vicinity, but were riding toward the Berezina. For all that, our situation could well justify them in shooting us like dogs if we had been discovered; and it was impossible to forget that they had but to lift the capes which covered us to undo our little plot in a twinkling. Do you wonder that we lay there as men who waited for a sentence of life or death?

Meanwhile, be sure that Mademoiselle Valerie was not idle.

Many times have I admired the wit and resource of that wonderful woman, but never as I did upon that fateful night. Anyone who had heard her would have sworn that she was the arch-enemy of Napoleon and of all his works, and that nothing but the direst necessity had carried her into the train of his army. With a candour which seemed childish she recited to them all that she had not done these many days. I could have laughed aloud at the fables she invented for the benefit of these simpletons. It was as inspiring as wine to see her smoking their little paper cigars and drinking the horrid gin to their successes.

And all the time Leon and I lay there wondering if the filthy Russians round about would utter the word which betrayed us. To this day I believe that they did not for mademoiselle's sake. It was otherwise with the cavalrymen themselves. When they had eaten and drunk they naturally drew near the stove, and soon there were a dozen of them swarming about it, and one actually sitting upon my knees. A more anxious moment is not to be described; and when the fellow began to banter me in Russian upon the profundity of my sleep I thought for a truth that all was lost.

The spirit had mounted to their heads by this time, and they were disposed to any humour that occurred to them. An imp of mischief prompted an ensign among them to suggest that Leon should be lifted on to the stove, and there left to roast until he came to his senses; and this idea was applauded by them all. Lifting my nephew by the legs, his ragged and mud-stained French breeches were laid bare for all to see; but, oddly enough, no one remarked the colour, and this I set down to the fact that clothes were often exchanged between the army in those days, and that a Russian with a hole in his breeches made no bones at all about wearing those of a Frenchman.

The danger was really from the fire itself, and the loud oaths it brought to Leon's lips. He was up and awake in an instant now, and with a curse upon them all he struck right and left, and brought them to their senses. They were just like men who handled a dog, to discover suddenly that he was a wolf and had bitten them; and with amazed cries they drew back and turned to mademoiselle. She, however, answered them with one of her merry laughs. The little Russian that I knew permitted me to see that she was warning them against some peril of which they were unaware; and no sooner was this done than they apprehended the danger for themselves.

You will understand this more readily when you remember that the post-house was on the high road, and that while the van of the army was then at Bobr, the rearguard, under Marshal Ney, had yet to march through. The outposts of this had entered the village while the officers were at supper, but the main body now appearing, the others made an immediate descent upon the post-house, and the shots and bullets rained upon it like hail. In a twinkling the plates upon the table went flying, the gla.s.s of the windows was shattered, and the crazy lamps put out.

The Russians themselves, believing that they had been taken in an ambush, went headlong through the back door of the building in quest of their horses; and soon we heard them rallying in the village street, and crying to their fellows to come out. The alarm had spread like wildfire, and such an appeal was not made in vain. The whole hamlet now became a scene of battle, upon which the moon shone brightly and the lamps in the house cast a derisive aureole. Odd that men should be killing each other upon that terrible night of winter, with food and shelter all about and nothing but the wilderness of death beyond! Yet so it befell, and such was the affair in which we now played our parts.

Naturally, we got out into the street as quickly as possible. We were both armed with pistols and had our swords drawn, but it was apparent that we could do nothing until the others had made good their entrance and got at the cavalry. The latter, finding themselves attacked on both sides, rode up and down the wide street like madmen, cutting and slas.h.i.+ng at invisible figures, and plainly drunk with the hospitality they had pillaged. So much our own men perceived, and, advancing from house to house, and taking cover wherever it was to be had, they fired at the enemy with deadly effect, and blotted the snow with the figures of the terrified hors.e.m.e.n who had been caught in this trap of fate.

Soon the place became a veritable shambles. The infantrymen, under Marshal Ney himself, grew bolder every instant, and, led both by the marshal and Prince Eugene, they came out into the open, and took the cavalry at the bayonet's point. There was no longer the necessity for Leon and myself to be spectators of the affray, and, rus.h.i.+ng out into the melee, we shot and sabred where we could. Wiser men would have remained in the post-house, and remembered the uniform they wore. I shall not soon forget the instant when some _cha.s.seurs a pied_ rushed upon me, and I had to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" with all my lungs to keep their bayonets from my throat. This, however, was but an episode, and, throwing the Cossack's cape and busby aside, I fought bareheaded until the last of the Russians had staggered to the post-house and fallen headlong at the feet of Valerie, who stood waiting and watching at the door.

I say the last of the Russians, and this is to give you a fair account of it. A few, it is true, got away through the court of the house to the open fields beyond; there may have been one or two who made good their escape on their way to Bobr; but of some five hundred who entered the village there were more than two hundred and fifty dead in the wide street, and almost as many prisoners when the end came.

We ourselves, amazed both at the swiftness of the victory and at our own good fortune, returned immediately to the post-house, and there found Valerie bending over the figure of the fallen Russian. The man had received a terrible blow from a sabre, which laid open his head almost to the ear, and he was stone dead when we found him. To us he was as one of the many whose bodies lay black and stiff in the moonlight, but to Valerie St. Antoine he had told another story.

"I know him well," she exclaimed. "He is General Kutusoff's aide-de-camp. Search his wallet, and you will know why he is on the road to Bobr. Do you not understand how much it may mean to His Majesty?"

We heard her with amazement, but did not lose a moment in doing her bidding. There were many papers and letters in the dead man's sack, but we knew enough to detect those of importance, and especially to pick out the doc.u.ments which concerned the Emperor. Here Mademoiselle Valerie's knowledge of Russian was something beyond price. One by one she read the doc.u.ments and told us their contents. When she came to that concerning the Berezina, the miracle of this man's death in such a place was beyond compare the event of that memorable night.

In a word, the paper told us that the bridge across the river was held by the Russians, and that if His Majesty and the army were not to perish another must be found.

V